


The Peach Stone

by B_Kilroy



Category: Mad Max Series (Movies)
Genre: Ficlet, Gen, Originally Posted on Tumblr, Peaches - Freeform, so I say to a 1300 word work
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-09
Updated: 2016-05-09
Packaged: 2018-06-07 08:53:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,372
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6797395
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/B_Kilroy/pseuds/B_Kilroy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“There is one thing I want,” Furiosa had told the Wives – now Sisters - once among those many times in the Vault with them, “to plant this peach stone at the other end.”  The pit was years old, dried and baked in the harsh landscape.  She rolled it around her palm, stroking its deep wrinkles with her thumb.  It gave her peace.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Peach Stone

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to caddyl and [furiroad](http://furiroad.tumblr.com/) on tumblr for sparking [this](http://furiroad.tumblr.com/post/124880995290/schwarmerei1-caddyl-i-know-that-a-lot-of) conversation about the comics and how [this panel](https://67.media.tumblr.com/14b4ecfae8e357419341e3bf3c01e3f2/tumblr_inline_nqan4y57Kx1qbxio9_540.png) and [this screenshot](https://66.media.tumblr.com/c8b8e02ef9ce2e6c7c4d19ef9abad45f/tumblr_inline_nqany1TRIZ1qbxio9_540.png) come together to present us an untold story from the Mad Max: Fury Road movie - Furiosa and the Peach Stone. 
> 
> That reads like a Harry Potter title.

“There is one thing I want,” Furiosa had told the Wives – now Sisters - once among those many times in the Vault with them, “to plant this peach stone at the other end.” The pit was years old, dried and baked in the harsh landscape. She rolled it around her palm, stroking its deep wrinkles with her thumb. It gave her peace, repeating the small action she had done many times before. 

The peach stone was perhaps the only thing Furiosa was able to hide away as part of her home. Her hair, her clothes, her people, her mother were gone and replaced by what Immortan Joe found fit. Still, she managed to keep the seed hidden from the prying hands and watchful eyes, and instilled it with all of her memories, hopes, and dreams of the Green Place of Many Mothers and finding her way back.

Furiosa tried to keep it with her at all times, a gentle weight to remind her that she was more than an Imperator, more than a cog in the Citadel machine. In every car she drove, she kept it in a small leather pouch hanging off the steering column. “They're my fucking nuts,” she told Ace the first time he noticed it. It earned her a laugh and the reassurance that no one else would question it.

It was with her every time she tried to get back to the Green Place. Where would I plant it? she fantasized. Maybe by her home. Maybe by the pond. Maybe somewhere only she'd know about. Maybe she'd place it in row with the other trees, let it grow as if it never left. It was too late for her.

She remembered the time that she tied the small pouch to the War Rig. It was no longer attached to the steering wheel of that rusty junker she had drove for hundreds of days, the one with no mirrors and the oldest V8 engine in existence. The peach pit belonged now in the cab of a beast, a twin-engine terror worth its weight in gold with a thousand different switches and tricks that gave it every advantage over the other cars driving the Fury Road. It had a hold that could be filled with food, water, guzz. People. She'd never have a better chance.

The pit was there when she ushered the Wives into the hold. It was there when she struck Ace down from the side of the War Rig, there when the Fool sat before the wheel, there when she navigated the canyon and lost Angharad. It was there when they passed through the bog, there when Valkyrie descended from the great metal tower and welcomed her, there when she found out the Green Place was gone.

She cradled the peach stone in her palm that night above the salt. There is one thing I want… to plant this peach stone at the other end. There was no other end. What soil out here would take a seed, let alone that which would grow a tree? Trying to plant it in one of Keep's skulls would be foolish. It would never sprout, just become another victim of the escape to nowhere.

Furiosa reluctantly turned it over to Keep, whose eyes twinkled at the prospect of something else that could be planted. If anything, it would be at home with her.

The Fool came down to them when they were a couple of miles into the Salt. He showed Furiosa a map, highlighted with the symbol of Immortan Joe inked in blood. “This, is your way home,” he pointed at it with a blackened finger. The Sisters, Nux, and the Vuvalini behind her thought it was a better idea than running out of guzz in the middle of the Salt. It only took a few well-meaning words to get her on their side.

They returned to the rig, redistributing supplies for the mad dash to the Citadel. The Fool, the Sisters, Nux, and Keep crammed into the cabin with her. Furiosa sensed the absence of the peach stone when she de-activated the killswitches but easily remembered it was safe. She almost scolded herself, even, for worrying about such a trivial thing then of all times. It would take more than a peach stone to make it back to the Citadel.

\- - -

She rested for days after the Fury Road nearly killed her. It took a while for her to start getting around, especially since she had two holes in her chest that needed to heal. Furiosa had a hard time taking it easy, because she knew that the Citadel without a leader was more than ready to burst apart and swarm like a broken beehive. It took Capable a while to finally get it through her head that it was all under control; the few War Boys that were left were either close to the end of their half-lives, or accepted the new authority with little conflict. There was nothing to worry about – for now.

The Vault was one of the first places she was able to make the journey to. Its door had been jammed open, and the removal of the locking pins was a work in progress. Inside, it looked much the same as it had that last night she had been with them and Miss Giddy. The furniture, the books, the piano, the paint, it was all there. There was an addition to it all, though - a table stood in the middle of the room, and on it sat Keep's bag of seeds. A look inside of it showed her exactly what she expected: seeds, and a small leather pouch. The peach stone.

“I'm going to plant some today,” Dag said as she came from an offshooting chamber. “Feel like you can come along?” All Furiosa needed was the invitation to give her the strength.

She took the seed away from the main gardening chamber. Many of the plants lived in narrow rotating gutters that operated for maximum efficiency, even though the outcome never seemed to trickle down. This one needed actual soil that went deep and wide, room to grow roots and take in what it needed. It couldn't be planted yet, though, not now. There was something special that needed to be done to it before it would take, a process that would take a long time, through into the winter. She could wait.

Furiosa thought about the peach stone as she rolled it around her palm, stroking its wrinkles once more. It inherited new meaning out there on the Fury Road. The there-and-back-again story she had put into it was gone with the Green Place. The Fury Road had taken too many things, too many people from her: Angharad, Nux, Valkyrie, Maadi, all but two of the Vuvalini. They had taken the risk of returning and lost their lives, and it was the duty of those who remained to make sure they hadn't died in vain.

She would plant it for them, for the Citadel, for the things to come. A tribute to the past, a hope for the future.

\- - -

It took 1700 days for it to bear fruit. She waited for nine of the peaches to ripen and picked eight of them from the tree. One for her. One each for the Sisters and the Daglet. One for Ami, and one for Jolene. The last one on the tree was for the Fool, Max, if he came around any time soon.

Of all the things that would come out of the garden, that first peach would the most delicious thing Furiosa ever had. It was perfect in every way, sweet and juicy down to the last bite. When the last morsel was gone and the juice had been licked from her hand, all that was left was the pit. She smiled as she held the familiar weight, idly wondering when and where she'd plant it and the others. Maybe with the first peach tree. Maybe she'd plant one in the Sisters' Chamber. Maybe she'd start an orchard on the top of the towers. She didn't think about it too much; it would be a while before she could plant them, after all.


End file.
